In Switzerland (August 31, 1912)

Published:PravdaNo. 105, August 31, 1912.

      Signed:P. P..

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages307-309.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

InPravdaNo. 63, on

			       July 12,[1]we told the reader about the general strike in Zurich on June 29 (July 12,
new style). It may be recalled that the strike was decidedin defiance
ofthe leaders of political organisations. The meeting of 425
representatives of all the workers’ organisations of Zurich, which declared
for the strike, greeted the statement of the printers, who were against the
strike, with shouts of“Shame!”

Bynow the press has published data exposing that opportunism.

Itappears that the political leaders of the Swiss workers in their
opportunism have gone so far as directbetrayal of the Party. It
is this scathing but justified phrase that the best organs of the Swiss and
German working-class press use in describing the conduct of the
Social-Democratic members of the Zurich Magistracy (Town Council). The
Zurich Town Council,defending the capitalists, prohibited strike
picketing (and then the workers decided to protest by a one-day general
strike).

Thereare nine members on the Zurich Magistracy, including four
Social-Democrats—Erismann, Pfl¨ger, Fogelsanger and Kl\"oti.

Andnow it has become known that the prohibition of picketing was
decided on by the Town Councilunanimously, that is to say,
Erismann and his three Social-Democratic colleagues votedforit!!! The Zurich Cantonal Governmenthad insisted that the Town Council should prohibitallpicketing,
but the four sapient

minnows,[2]that is, Zurich Social-Democrats, made a
“compromise” proposal to prohibit picketing only in the area of
the two mechanical shops where work had been stopped.

Ofcourse, it was just this partial prohibition of picketing that the
bourgeoisie was demanding, and the “Social-Democrats’” (?!)
proposal was adopted by the bourgeois majority of the Town Council!

Whatis more, the Zurich Town Council recently published an account of
the events occasioned by the general strike. The capitalists declared a
three-day lock-out by way of revenge. The Zurich Town Council decidedunanimously, withall its fourSocial-Democratic members
participating, that it was necessary tocall in troopsto
reinforce the police in maintaining public order.

Noris that all. The bourgeois Town Council of Zurich furiously
attacked, by a series of repressive measures, those manual and office
workers in the town’s establishments who had joined in the strike. It
sacked 13 workers and imposed disciplinary punishments (demotion, pay cuts)
on another 116. These decisions of the Town Council were likewise adoptedunanimously, with Erismann and his two colleagues participating.

Theconduct of Erismann and Co. can only be described as betrayal of
the Party.

Itis not surprising that the anarcho-syndicalists enjoy a certain
success in Switzerland, since it falls to them to criticise before the
workers a socialist party which tolerates such opportunist traitors in its
ranks. The reason why the treachery of Erismann and Co. is of major
international significance is that it shows usclearly from what
quarterandin what mannerthe working-class movement is
threatened withinternalcorruption.

Erismannand Co. are by no means common deserters to the enemy camp;
they are simply peaceful petty bourgeois, opportunists who are accustomed
to parliamentary “vermicelli” and who have succumbed to constitutional
democratic illusions. The moment the class struggle took a sharp turn, all
illusions about constitutional “order” and a “democratic republic” were
dispelled at once, and our philistines holdingthe office of Social-Democratic members of the Town Council lost their
heads and slid into the marsh.

Class-consciousworkers can see from this sad example the consequences
which the spread of opportunism in a workers’ party isboundto
have.

[1]Seepp. 160–62 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]Thesapient minnowpersonifies the craven philistine in
M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy-tale of that name.